Hi everyone My name is Jeff Lyons. I am a high school English language arts teacher from Maine, here on vacation. I am pleased to be with you all tonight for the premiere of this important movie, and I appreciate being asked to say a few words. I am not here to tell you things you probably know better than I about the Armenian genocide and diaspora. I'm here to talk about art and history and justice. I believe, as Dr. Martin Luther King said, "the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice." Homer's Iliad includes a scene of a young father playing with his infant son and talking with his wife, a brief poignant interlude, since all, including the audience, know the father will soon die in battle, the wife will be raped and enslave, and the baby murdered. Art gives a human face and a human voice to history. Archaeology shows that Troy, located in modern-day Turkey, was destroyed repeatedly thousands of years ago. For the so-called civilizations of the ti